Saturday, 22 February 2014

British couple conned into believing they'd had a baby by Nigerian doctor

A British couple spent 10 years trying
to conceive. Then the husband's friend recommended herbal programme and
introduced them to Dr Cletus Okolo in Lagos who they paid £4,500 for bags of herbs to help them conceive. The herbs made the woman swell up as if pregnant. Read full story below..From Daily Mail

A couple’s desperation for a baby led
them into a programme of bogus herbal treatments that convinced them she
was pregnant and had given birth - until DNA tests proved it was a lie. The
British couple, who have not been named, returned from the specialist
hospital in Nigeria to bring up their 'daughter' in Britain when they
were arrested, and the little girl seized.

They
had gone to a doctor in Lagos, Nigeria, to spend more than £4,500 on
'herbs' in a last ditch attempt to conceive after a decade of trying. Miraculously,
the substances they ate seemed to mimic the effects of pregnancy. Even a
London GP believed the symptoms, issuing a maternity leave certificate.

Nine months later, Dr Cletus Okolo
staged a charade labour, during which the mother was drugged. At the
end, she was handed what she believed to be her daughter.

But when they arrived back home, with
little documentation, social workers were suspicious and eventually
arrested the couple, taking the little girl into care.

Ten months later, they still cannot accept that the child they brought home from Nigeria is not their own,
although DNA tests have shown conclusively that they are not the
biological parents.

Now, in a unique decision by top family
judge Mrs Justice Hogg, the ‘intelligent, educated, hard working’ couple
has been cleared the of allegations that they were knowing parties to
the fraud.The
judge said that, despite 10 years of trying surgery, laser treatment
and IVF, the couple, both British citizens, had failed to conceive a
child.

However, in 2010, the
father bumped into a friend from university who told of a couple who
had had twins after undergoing ‘some herbal treatment’ in Nigeria.

They
leaped at the chance and travelled to Nigeria where a Dr Cletus Okolo
prescribed a course of herbal treatments he claimed would do the trick.

On returning to Britain and taking the herbs, the mother noticed her body changing.Her face, arms and belly all swelled
up and even a ‘kindly and well-meaning’ local GP took the symptoms to
mean she was seven months pregnant.The doctor signed off a maternity certificate and the couple travelled back to Nigeria. At
the clinic near Lagos they handed over £4,500 and the mother was given a
brown liquid to drink before entering what she thought was a delivery
room.The father waited in the corridor outside and, after few minutes, heard a baby cry.

He entered the room to find the baby girl - referred to in court only as ‘A’ - lying on the bed beside his semi-conscious wife. He was shown a fake umbilical cord being cut and given a placenta to carry away in a plastic bag.Afterwards, Dr Okolo wrote: 'Treatment successful, patient delivered of a baby girl. All fees paid. God’s doing'.That
was the only document that accompanied the birth and, when the couple
flew home with their 'daughter', social workers were quickly on the
alert.They were later
arrested and the baby girl was taken into police protection. To the
couple’s ‘considerable dismay and shock’, DNA testing proved that the
little girl was not their child.

Having waited so long for a baby, the couple refused accept the truth. They insisted ‘the combination of spiritual and herbal treatments was so powerful as to be able to change DNA’.

But
the judge said: 'There is no evidence before me to say that the result
of the DNA testing was wrong or likely to be wrong. I do not accept the
explanation of the parents. 'On
that basis I have to accept the validity of the results and find that
the baby is not the biological child of the putative parents.'

Social
workers from the London Borough of Hillingdon, as well as the child’s
court-appointed guardian, argued that the couple were ‘knowing parties
to an elaborate fraud and charade upon the British immigration
authorities and now parties to an attempted fraud on the Court.'They said the couple’s account of the birth was ‘littered with inconsistency’ and implausibly embellished.

The
judge conceded: 'At first blush, the immediate reaction of the ordinary
man on the proverbial Clapham omnibus would no doubt be, "don’t be
daft, it's a fraud, they knew it”.'

However,
noting the ‘enormous difficulty’ the couple had had in conceiving a
child, Mrs Justice Hogg took them at their word when they said they
would ‘never seek to buy a baby’.She added: 'Despite their education
and intelligence, they are struggling with the result of the DNA test.
Both of them say they still believe that A is their natural child.

'In
the end, having considered all the evidence...I am driven to conclude
that in some way they allowed themselves to be duped by fraudsters.

'They
so much wanted a baby....they allowed themselves to fall under the
spell of the herbalists, believing what was said to the mother and
acting faithfully upon the instructions given to them.

'Contrary to the submissions of the
local authority and guardian I do not find that the parents were
wilfully and knowingly involved with or parties to a wrongful removal of
A from her mother, or that they cynically ‘bought’ a baby.'

The
judge concluded: 'What is clear to me, having found that she is not
their biological child but the child of another mother and father, and
having been removed from her mother very soon after her birth, is that A
certainly is the victim of wrongdoing and illegality, and very possibly
her mother as well.

'The
fact remains that A is effectively an orphan. There is noone in this
country who has parental responsibility for her and no information as to
her birth, parentage, or background.'

Mrs
Justice Hogg directed a further hearing to decide where the little
girl’s best interests lie. Her finding that the couple were innocent
dupes will greatly improve their chances of persuading the court that
A’s future should be with them.

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